


and the earth said she loved them, because they are love

by Anonymous



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I guess????, Poetic, Ranboo Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Tommy needs a hug, Tubbo needs a hug, Whump, no beta we die like pets on this server, the earth gets PISSED, they get that damn hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29286312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Three children run from a fate they know is inevitable.But the Earth will not allow it to be so.
Relationships: Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 44
Kudos: 197
Collections: Anonymous





	and the earth said she loved them, because they are love

**Author's Note:**

> whaddup, it's ya girl, back at it again *whips out shades* drop that comment or kudos like how i drop my favourite characters into a steaming vat of angst B)
> 
> this do be hitting different with 'achilles come down' in the background tho

**_The Earth did not understand._ **

“Run! Come on, Ranboo!”

Feet pounding, heart hammering, armour clanging as they pushed through the resisted arms of tall trees with dark trunks and grey-green leaves. Ran away from home, from the only home they’d ever known. Three boys. Two of which remembered.

A lake glistened as they approached, and all of them, connected by the same, desperate desire to get to safety, connected in ways they couldn’t possibly fathom, swerved around it, the taller figure in the middle, dragging behind, near slumping in thinly-veiled relief.

**_She understood not, why her children had to fight._ **

Behind them, crashing. Feet that bounded across the snow, flew past the lake, feet bound in dark armour cast with shimmering, purple enchantments. Footfalls that sent a jolt of fear down all of their spines. From a belt flashed an axe, made of nether essence, strong and sturdy and deadly. Once a gift.

“Cut through the lake,” the Blood God ordered to his two companions. “They’re headin’ to shore, so if we catch ‘em before they get through the portal, they’re cornered.”

Cornered indeed. The Blood God knew that his pseudo-brother was far too noble to leave anyone behind.

**_Why they had to bleed._ **

“To-Tommy, I can’t run-run anymore!”

Once a president, crowned while at the cusp of seventeen years of life. Now a traitor to a country that had been cursed by its former leaders, by the people who’d shed their blood for it. Now running. Running with his friends, also traitors. Away from everything they’d ever known. From family. From friends. Running to a future the boy wasn’t even sure he’d see.

Because, dear reader, Tommy and Tubbo and Ranboo danced on the edge of permanent death. Danced on the blade of a knife, danced until their feet bled and burned and then danced more because they had no choice but to keep moving, lest they fall into a pit they could never crawl out of again.

Tommy had been there when they took two of Ranboo’s lives, once, twice to the tank of water constructed in the middle of the square.

Not the third one, though.

Tommy had shot the executioner through the skull before he could try again.

**_Why they had to die._ **

“We can-can lose them in the Nether!”

But Tubbo’s legs burned. His head ached. His chest tingled with the memory of scars long since gone pale. Scars that spiderwebbed out, from his heart, up his neck and onto his jaw. On his arms, on his stomach. Scars that held the memory of an event he didn’t want to remember.

“Oh, _Tommy~”_

**_She hated the fear in their eyes._ **

Tommy went stiff and straight, only continuing at Ranboo taking the initiative to tug him forward, none too gently. Shiver spiders crawled up his spine, little legs tapping out a rhythm of fear against his skin. He didn’t want to remember.

Not the smoke, the explosive, the TNT, the flimsy tent, the beatings, the tower. The tower.

Tommy couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if he’d just jumped.

He’d always wanted to die on his own terms. Tears filled his eyes and slipped their lazy way down his cheeks at the prospect of dying to his ~~former~~ father’s sword.

(“I’m sorry, Tommy,” he’d said, not looking sorry at all. A raised weapon, netherite armour that glinted in the sun as he levelled a blade at them. “But this is what I owe Dream.”)

Words on a page.

**_Hated the terror that consumed their hearts._ **

Phil had betrayed them all.

Had sold out Ranboo to Dream in exchange for Techno staying out of prison. Had sat by. Had just watched. Just watched as the kid kicked and struggled and screamed in unspeakable agony in that water tank. Twice over. Sat and stared and watched, as if the circus had come to town. As if it was all some form of entertainment for him. For his sick, twisted sense of humour.

Phil had watched. Phil had been his friend, once. But he had watched. He didn’t smile. But he didn’t help.

Not even when Ranboo begged for it.

Leather-bound secrets. Leather-bound lies.

**_Why did they need to run?_ **

Tubbo gasped and sobbed out a breath, his throat seizing up with the force of a cough that wracked his whole frame as he stumbled to a stop. They were maybe thirty seconds in front of their pursuers. Not enough time to stop.

“Tubbo!” Tommy screamed as his best friend pulled out his battered iron sword with grim determination.

He turned to Tommy, smile bright, smile innocent, eyes tired, face worn and lined with grime. “Go! Ranboo, take him and get out!”

“ _What are you doing?_ Are you _stupid?_ ”

There was a lump in Tubbo’s throat. He thought of the sky, of the flowers, of lazy afternoons, sitting on their bench and listening to those discs. He thought of Ranboo, of the quiet nervousness he’d brought with him, the way he slotted right into their little group. He thought of Tommy. Tommy the spitfire, Tommy who punched first and asked questions later. Tommy who was abrasive and stupid and reckless and _Tubbo’s_.

Tommy who was his best friend. Tommy who was worth fighting for.

**_She asked why? Why did they continue to do this?_ **

Because Tubbo knew. Knew in his young heart that had seen far too much violence for his age, knew that there would be no way to escape without some sort of diversion. Without some sort of break.

Tubbo couldn’t go on. He was too slow to make it out.

Brown eyes, dark and warm and shining with fierceness he’d never felt before, settled on the trees behind him.

“Go, Tommy,” he repeated, quieter. With the voice of a child who’d accepted his fate. Who’d embraced it.

Tommy had once talked about going out on his own terms. And these were Tubbo’s terms. “I won’t lea-leave you here.”

But Tommy knew. And so did Ranboo, judging by the tears pouring down his cheeks. Stinging tears that sizzled two-toned skin as they fell. Burning tears that traced their way down onto the blanketed floor, mirrored in the other boys. They weren’t ready to say goodbye. But they had to.

“Tell our stories, Tommy,” Tubbo said, so earnestly that the tears came thicker and faster. “Don’t forget me.”

But Tommy surged forward, just as the Blood God, the Nightmare, the Angel, came rumbling into view. “I won’t leave you!” This time firmer. Thin, spindly arms encircled his waist and pulled him back.

Tubbo relaxed, shooting a relieved smile at Ranboo. “I love you two! Stay-stay alive for me.”

The last part was a whisper, lost to the icy winds of the tundra.

**_She wept. Felt tears surging as her children fell around her._ **

Tubbo turned to face his enemies as the other two disappeared, Ranboo sobbing as he lugged a shrieking Tommy behind him.

“Tubbo.” The greeting from behind the mask was cordial. A formality.

“Dream.” He twirled his sword experimentally. “Nice to see you here.”

Tubbo wished he wasn’t hoping to see something, some flicker of old warmth in Phil’s eyes. But he was met with a blank wall. Colder than the metal that made up his sword.

Tubbo wished he said he could feel peace as weapons clashed, as he met this fate at the hands of a man he used to consider a father. As he was hacked away at, armourless with a nearly broken sword.

Wings puffed up in aggression. Tubbo remembered a time when those wings had cradled him in their soft, black depths, their beauty and loveliness that was unmatched. Now, that would never be the case again.

So Tubbo thought of the sun.

He saw the sun in his line of sight, lying on the forest floor. Tubbo saw the sun, and not Phil’s face. He saw the sun glinting off the blade, but not Phil’s face as it came down. He saw the sun and he thought of Tommy. He saw the sun and he thought of Ranboo. He saw the sun and saw in his dreams a cottage in the middle of nowhere, a cottage where he and his friends lived. The sun above them, guiding bright days where they were safe.

And Tubbo thought of the sun, of warmth and peace and happiness, and he did not scream. He smiled at the sun, at Tommy, at Ranboo, at their lives ahead of them as the sword plunged down.

**_She screamed to the heavens, to the hunters._ **

Their communicators pinged. Tommy let out an anguished wail as they kept going forward, unable to stop.

The portal was in view and finally, they begun to slow, Tommy taking the opportunity to shove Ranboo away as he skidding to a halt, crumpling to his knees uselessly, unable to bear his own weight.

He was aware of the presence hovering above him. He wanted nothing to do with it.

Tommy looked up, eyes red with rage and grief he’d never known before. He looked up and he snarled, wilder than a dog whose puppy had been hurt.

“This is your fault!” he cried shrilly, through the tears because he couldn’t stop them. Not even if he tried, and he was trying. Ranboo shook like a leaf, hand pressed against his mouth as he stopped himself from making the noises Tommy knew he wanted to make. “You-you—” He was cut off abruptly by a sob. “We didn’t have to-to _leave_ him there! Why’d y-you leave him like that you-you _bastard!_ ” He stood only to wrench the hand from Ranboo’s mouth away. “Just fucking _tell me!”_

Ranboo shook his head, his form crumbling, his body quivering in fear, in sadness, in rage. Rendered mute by shock, by disbelief because Tubbo couldn’t be dead. There wasn’t a single way Tubbo could be gone. Gone and not come back, because Tubbo was something bright, something to live for.

Tubbo was one of his first friends and he couldn’t be gone.

“I-I’m sorry,” he choked out, distorted and quiet. “He-Tubbo he—”

“One down. Two to go.”

The arrow had been aiming for Tommy, but a split second later, the warbled cry of an enraged enderman had filled the air with its staticky screech. Purple particles floated around the hand that was clenched around the shaft of the evil thing, as if it had been plucked from the air, mid-flight.

Ranboo growled at Technoblade himself. Growled at Dream who’d stepped forward, smile dancing on his lips, growled at Phil.

“ **Get away from him.”** Voice unrecognisable, Ranboo’s claws sharpened as they grew, pointed and deadly. Enough to claw a man’s eyes out.

Enough to claw off that stupid mask.

**_She screamed for innocence lost._ **

“R-Ranboo.” Tommy grabbed the sleeve of the suit jacket. “Ranboo pl-please, I can’t lose you too.”

When someone’s mind was made up, it was already done.

In his own mind, Ranboo was already a dead man.

~~He didn’t want to die.~~

But then Dream was striking first, running at them with speed that seemed inhumane, unreal, and all he could do was bring up his claws to protect himself, jolt himself a block away so that Dream lost his balance, teetered dangerously for a moment that lasted forever as Ranboo leapt forward, digging his claws into the chinks between the armour and tore and ripped and mangled any skin he could get his hands on.

“That was for Tubbo!” he cried, fingers dripping victorious blood.

When he looked back, Tommy was tearful. ‘ _No’,_ Ranboo mouthed as he made to grab at the axe from his belt.

This was goodbye. They weren’t ready yet.

Tommy stepped away. _‘Please.’_

But Ranboo shook his head sadly. Forced on a smile.

Ranboo wished he could’ve gone with them. Wished and hoped for a time where he wouldn’t live in fear for his memory book to be discovered. A time where he wouldn’t be killed over a betrayal he couldn’t even remember.

He wished for warmth. For safety he hadn’t felt in such a long time.

For himself. For Tubbo. For Tommy.

He wanted Tommy to live. Because if Tommy died, then this game, this horrible game would be over. And Dream would’ve won.

Tommy was the white king, with Tubbo as his queen and Ranboo as his bishop. Techno was the black king, with Phil as his queen and Dream as his bishop.

But for the longest time, Ranboo had been nothing but a pawn. Not even able to change his own destiny. Now? Now he was breaking free. He was here, the bright sun above, the snowy landscape stretching for miles and miles, the sea behind him. Ranboo was here, and he was here to fight for a future he’d never see.

And he was okay with that. He was afraid, but he was okay. Because Tubbo’s voice whispered in his ear, and he felt strong. Stood taller, eyes glinting sharply. His head felt the clearest it had been that day, and that was all he needed. A ghostly hand covered in a dirty, green sleeve slipped into his own, right at the last second, just as he threw himself forward, a whirlwind of teeth and claws and righteous fury.

He was glad that Tommy stepped through the portal before he had to witness the axe getting buried in his chest.

**_She sobbed and sobbed, mourned for lives never to come back._ **

Tommy ran through the nether, across crunchy, crumbly netherrack, across paths of cobblestone, of wood, of obsidian. He ran and ran, past the portal back to a place he could never run to again, ignoring the second ping of his comm device. Straight past, to a portal he didn’t think he’d ever see. Not again.

But when he stepped through, Logstedshire was the same as he left it. No longer smoking, but ruined and charred, blackened with smoke and ash, the scent of which still hung heavily in the air.

Tommy stood in silence. Stumbled a bit away.

And then he fell.

**_But then the tears stopped. Stilled. She went numb._ **

(They say Icarus laughed as he fell. They say he cackled to the receding figure of his father, far above him. They say he smiled at the sun, one last time. They say that when Icarus fell, he was not afraid. They say that when the wax burned his shoulders, when the feathers fluttered around him, when gravity pulled him down to those rocks, he felt nothing but pride. They say Icarus fell for love of Apollo. They say, they say, they say.

But Icarus was a child. A child who flew too close out of a kind of curiosity that could not be tamed. A child that saw Apollo and wandered too close to his light and felt no love as he plummeted to the Earth. That felt no love as he screamed and sobbed and begged for his father to rescue him. He cried tears that fell with him, droplets of salt and fear and pain slipping into the ocean to never be seen again.

Icarus fell, flapping his broken wings futilely, too-big tunic whipping in the terrible winds. He flapped and he screamed in terrified desperation because Icarus wanted to _live._ He wanted to live!

And in that last moment, all Daedalus saw of his son was the crippling terror in his young face.)

**_And the Earth finally felt something that wasn’t grief._ **

When Tommy fell, he fell to the soft grass, forehead to the ground as his body was wracked with sobs that were too big for his frame. He shuddered and shook and cried for the two lives lost protecting _him._

Protecting him as Dream’s final toy. His only puppet left.

And a part of him was envious of the other two, who’d already escaped, who were already free. He wanted to give up, wanted to leave this Earth with nothing more tethering him to it. Nothing more to keep him there other than his body that was giving out on him.

How could he live now? Without the people who made him whole? Without the people he had lost, one way or another?

First it was Eret. Then Wilbur. Then Fundy and Niki and Jack altogether. Phil and Techno came next. Tubbo. Ranboo.

Either gone or consumed with hatred.

**_She felt rage._ **

And when the Blood God stepped out of that portal, Tommy did not rise. Tommy had fallen like Icarus, tears still fresh on his pale, pale cheeks. Tommy had fallen and he was drowning without the support. Tommy’s heart was bleeding, open as Icarus’s had been. Raw and open and bleeding profusely with fear and mourning that tore everything in two.

“We meet again, Theseus.”

Maybe Technoblade was expecting a laugh. A croaky giggle. A string of curses. A fight.

He got more tears, flowing faster, thicker.

Because Tommy was not Theseus. He was so tired of being a hero. He was not Theseus. He hated Theseus, whoever he was. He hated being this hero that was supposed to die for his mistakes. He was not Theseus because he left his friends to their deaths.

Tommy was not Theseus, despite what Technoblade said, and it tore him to shreds because if Tommy was Theseus, it meant that Technoblade had already chosen his fate for him.

Tommy did not want to be Theseus. Tommy wanted to live with his friends, with Wilbur in old L’Manberg. Before everything went to shit. Tommy wanted to hold onto that last memory, hold onto it as tight as he could because it was all he had left.

It wasn’t pride that stopped him from begging for mercy. It was tiredness.

“Hello, Technoblade,” Tommy replied, already hollow.

He stared down at the ground, the grass that felt prickly against his exposed skin. The gentle waves lapping at the shores. The powdery sand, the clear sky and puffy clouds. The Christmas tree that still stood tall and strong.

This was a good place to die, he thought.

**_White hot, bubbling rage that filled every pore of her being._ **

“Aren’cha gonna…you know? Fight back?”

Tommy shook his head, staggering to his feet and spreading his arms wide. “Do it, Technoblade.”

He couldn’t even find it within himself to smile, still crying steadily, tears dripping off his jaw freely. His throat had closed up entirely. Speaking was so, so difficult. Maybe he should say something. Just anything. So his last words wouldn’t just be him giving up in the most out of character fashion.

Tommy wished he could bring himself to care.

Technoblade stalked forward. Tommy’s eyes wanted to slide shut, wanted to block it all out when it happened. But he forced himself to watch. Because if Ranboo and Tubbo could do it, so could he.

A part of him selfishly hoped he could find the shimmering apparitions of his fallen friends in those last moments, their hands finding his own to offer some sort of comfort they were robbed of in their last moments.

“Damn. Thought you were gonna cuss me out.”

Tommy shook his head, unsure if his voice would work properly. He caught sight of Phil. Black wings ruffled, the diamond pattern barely discernible underneath the overlapping feathers.

He wondered if this was how Wil felt.

Cornered, alone, with everything he’d loved ripped away from him. Except Tommy truly had no one left.

_It was never meant to be._

Those words were on his lips. Those infamous words that had carried so much suffering. He wanted to say it. Wanted to see the expressions on their faces. Wanted his final words to resonate across the world and back again. Wanted to shake the Earth itself.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

So instead, he managed a wobbly smile, imagined two figures, one overly lanky, one overly short, standing beside him with similar smiles on their faces. Tommy smiled in the face of death. He smiled and he wondered about his friends. Wondered if there was an afterlife he could go to, where he could meet them again.

“N-No.” He swallowed. “I’m ready.”

He wasn’t.

**_How dare they treat her children in this manner?_ **

“Any last words?”

Tommy closed his eyes, just for a second, humming as he thought to himself.

Yeah. Yeah, he did have some last words.

Cracking his eyelids open, he gave a ghost of his once-cheeky grin. The one that came before chaos and mischief. “S-Suck it, green boy!” he murmured with none of his usual gusto, taking delight in the way Dream’s face twisted.

He was right. Tommy’s death would result in Dream losing his favourite pawn. As if his favourite pawn wasn’t the king, wasn’t so crucial to this delicate game of politics. As if he wasn’t his own person, wasn’t his own piece who could make his own decisions, bad as they were.

Techno stepped forward.

**_Her children, who were forced to grow up so quickly._ **

This was it. The end.

 _I’m sorry,_ were the words he never said. Not aloud.

But to himself, a whispered promise.

He could picture the three of them in his mind. Laughing, chasing each other in a flower field somewhere in the world beyond this one. Carefree. A world with no tears. No pain. No fear. No executions or deaths or fragile loyalties or difficult decisions or countries to run.

A place where they would be safe.

**_Her children, who’ve suffered so much and gained so little._ **

_“I love you two!”_ Tubbo’s shaky grin at them, the flash of teeth, green amongst the white snow.

The look Ranboo had given him, just before he’d stepped through the swirling purple. Filled with emotion and love and sincerity.

**_Her children, who never deserved this._ **

Hands slipped into his own.

“Come home, Tommy,” they said, together.

**_Her children, who knew the ashy taste of death far too well._ **

Techno’s sword was raised. And Tommy was ready.

**_Her children, who deserved none of this._ **

He was ready to see his friends again.

**_Her children. Hers and no one else’s._ **

There was a rumble in the Earth. Tommy didn’t care.

**_Her children. And she will protect them this time._ **

The sword came down…

And never stuck in flesh and bone. Instead, it embedded itself into plant matter, into the flesh of twin vines that had shot up before Tommy’s feet, criss-crossing themselves over his frail body in an effort to protect him. A third vine, set to impale Dream, was narrowly avoided.

“What the—”

But no one could speak in the presence of a goddess. Not when she was angry enough to level mountains, to burn down whole forests. Not when the goddess of life, of creativity, of safety, not when the protector of the innocence leapt up from the ground, white wings woven through with flowers arched high over a head adorned with a circlet of golden leaves, behind Tommy and snarled at the entourage of hunters.

And Phil fell to his knees.

Because while he was the Angel of Death, Angel of chaos and destruction, his wife was the Goddess of Life. Of the Overworld. Gentle and soft and everything he wasn’t. The woman he married was something so otherworldly, so pure, that he wasn’t sure how they were compatible.

But it wasn’t Kristen who looked at him now, with fury burning so bright in her glowing, green eyes.

This was the Protectress. The queen of broken creatures.

And she was _pissed._

“Kristen—” he tried.

She raised a trembling hand, adorned in poppies and roses. “Don’t. Don’t you _dare_ try and twist this. I was watching the whole thing.”

Tommy’s head spun, somehow fixating on the last sentence. _‘I was watching the whole thing. I was watching the whole thing.’_

He didn’t feel angry. Only resigned.

Phil stepped forward, hands raised placatingly. “Listen to me. Please, Kristen, I didn’t mean for it to—”

“Oh, like how you didn’t mean to kill Tubbo,” she snarled back. “Running him through was an accident, was it?”

It was Technoblade’s turn to try with the enraged mother who’d already lost so much in this single day. Her children, her trust, her husband. Lost so much, and gained so little, She would not lose anything more. “Tommy is better off dead,” he said bluntly.

Before he got to finish, a thick, brambly vine wrapped around Technoblade’s ankle. “So are you, I think.”

Phil was frozen, unable to do anything without looking like a hypocrite.

Tommy sniffled once from behind her, ducking underneath the left wing and attaching himself to her side, breathing in the earthy smell he remembered from his childhood. Fractured memories spent singing on her lap, or planting flowers with her. Before she had to go away.

He tried not to cry.

Her arm snaked around him in a hug that nearly broke him down. “Kristen, think about this.”

“I have.” Her eyes filled with angry tears. “I have had ten years to think about this, Phil! I trusted you with them! I trusted you to keep them safe and well and _what_ did you do? You hunted them down, you _bastard._ ”

“They were traitors!” he yelled.

“To whom?” she shot back. “You? He sides with the only person who hasn’t seriously backstabbed him one time and he becomes a traitor? Ranboo too?” She spat, right at the ground in front of Phil’s feet. “I am disgusted with you.” Her voice shook. “I want nothing more than to kill you now. Nothing more than to rip you to shreds.”

And she could. In the Overworld, she had all power. She could do anything she wanted to them here. They would be at her total mercy. And if they escaped to the Nether…

Rumours whispered that Kristen’s little sister of fire and brimstone had a mighty temper and a lethal grudge against anyone who hurt her family.

“Then do it.” Dream sounded calm. He looked calm. He didn’t realise that her threat was deadly. Was a promise more like. But the bastard wasn’t on his last fucking life. He had more, as well as resurrection magic. Dream could come back.

“I will.”

But Kristen pulled out a necklace, black stone, jagged and rough cut but beautiful in its own way, clutching it in a fist. Phil’s eyes widened in fear. “Kristen!” he hissed.

She smiled wearily. “I’m tired of seeing my children die, Phil.” She turned to Techno and Dream, rooted to the spot quite literally, that flame of red and orange dancing in her wild eyes. “So I’m taking matters into my own hands. But first, you two have something I want.”

Tommy wasn’t sure what was happening, because in the next second, Techno and Dream crumpled to the ground, screaming.

Shrieking to the heavens in agony unmatched, unheard of (except he’d heard that same agony in Ranboo’s screams as he drowned in the acidic water), stretched out over long, tense seconds that went on for far too long, making Tommy hide in her soft clothing to mask a whimper until the screaming died down.

But when he looked up, she was satisfied, the black stone now glowing purple with enchantment.

And she began to speak as the vines took proper hold of the three hunters, twisting over their arms, their legs, creeping up their necks and chins in strangleholds that were only a single insult away from becoming deadly.

Kristen began to chant.

Odd words with clipped syllables that meant nothing to him. But something to Phil. Words that filled the silent air, because not even the birds dared to sing in the presence of their queen. Not even the crickets would chirp when their goddess was in this state.

Then the air was glowing around them, bright and burning blue in colour, burning his retinas so he had to look away from it all, bury his face into her side again.

“What are you doing?”

She laughed at Technoblade’s incredulity. “What I should’ve done a long time ago.”

It began with a shimmer. A wisp of a form. A ripple in the air. An outline that grew more and more solid by the second. Green shirt, brown hair, short stature. Another outline joining the first. Split down the middle, one half black, one half white. Tall. Black and white suit.

Ranboo blinked his way into this world with none of the gusto with which he left it. Surveying the area, surprise registered in heterochromatic eyes, he took in Tubbo and then the hunters behind, immediately pushing his friend back behind him to bare his teeth at the foe.

Tommy couldn’t speak. For once in his life, rendered speechless.

He knew, knew full well and good, that if this was some cruel prank, some hallucination, he would shatter. Break apart.

But then Kristen was speaking, low and soft and melodic. “Ranboo. Tubbo. This way,” she murmured.

The three of them locked eyes, despite Ranboo flinching initially. Locked eyes and stared at each other.

Stared.

Stared.

Stared.

A choked sob escaped Tommy, and suddenly, Tubbo was glued to him, arms thrown around his middle as he hugged the life out of his best friend. More arms followed, long and slightly awkward, but slotting in as the puzzle piece they never realised they were missing, a chin on Tommy’s head as he cried his little heart out, as he bled, an open wound for all to see.

Their world was enveloped in a quiet cocoon of white feathers, as Kristen brought her wings around the lot of them, humming a lullaby that Tommy vaguely recognised.

Here. Safe and warm in the arms of the Earth who loved them. _Who loved them._

“And,” Kristen sang, voice as sweet as the nightingale’s, “the universe said you are not alone. And the universe said you are not separate from every other thing,” she continued, bringing them together, close to her beating heart as they all cried. “And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code.” She smiled, laughed, a little choked. “And the universe said I love you because you are love.”

Tommy believed her. They were love. Love in its purest form. Love like light, like a lonely lantern in the endless black of night. They were love, Tommy realised, watching Tubbo blot the tears from Ranboo’s face, feeling himself latch onto the two of them and not let go.

New tears slipped down his cheeks. The universe loved him. The Earth loved him. Tubbo and Ranboo loved him.

And that was enough.

(Later, hours later, when the sun had dipped past the horizon and Kristen had dealt with the threat in her own way, they sat in a shelter constructed of branches and vines tied closely together with magic, surprisingly warm, nestled together as they ate a hot meal, their mother watching them with twinkling eyes. There had been talk of building something more permanent soon. But this was enough for now.

Tommy had yelled at her, screamed at her for abandoning them for so long, almost afraid she’d kick him out for it. But she’d sat, and she’d _listened._ Listened with no flimsy excuses, no deflections. Just acceptance. And an apology.

She apologised as if she wasn’t the first adult to own up to her mistakes here. As if she wasn’t the only one not to blame things on him. As if she cared, actually _cared,_ for them.

She sang them all to sleep with sweet promises of a tomorrow. Of a sunrise, a wild thing that they hadn’t even been able to imagine only a few hours prior.

A sunrise.

Tubbo and Ranboo and Tommy would get up early to watch the sunrise. It was decided when the three snuggled down in their own beds made of the softest mattresses and warmest fleece. They’d pushed them together, Tubbo in the middle, Ranboo and Tommy on either side.

And when Tubbo said those words, said, “I love you two,” he was met with a response.

“I love you Tubbo.”

“I love you too.”

Technoblade had been wrong. Violence was not the only universal language. Because that night, the universe chose love. The Earth chose love.

 _They_ chose love. And it was more than enough.)

**Author's Note:**

> fucken cried writing this shit  
> also pumped this out in a single day, everyone please clap and comment for my efforts, thank you thank you i am very brave i know  
> 
> 
> other stuff by me if you don't want poetic bullshit:
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994845
> 
> finished fic series set in manberg with villain!schlatt
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/27790258/chapters/68033464
> 
> a dadschlatt fic in which you get some good ol' sibling quackity and tubbo as well as wilbur soot being an ass
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/28646838
> 
> niki being badass and an older sister to ranboo because i like the dynamic too much
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829736/chapters/70712247
> 
> ranboo gets put into prison and is very badly hurt. sbi dynamic and ranboo and niki being siblings again :)


End file.
